bglbrg's comments

I worked in Amazon warehouses for two summers during college, doing the sorts of tasks described here. The first year there was no A/C. Actually, it wasn't so terrible. The next year there was central air, but by then there was quite a bit more structure. I was on a 10h overnight shift four days a week. There were traffic lights hanging from the ceilings; if the light was green, you'd go home at 6am. If the light was yellow, you could opt to work overtime for an hour. Red light = mandatory overtime.

It was fairly unpleasant, but I was only there 4 months at a time, and for a 19 y/o the pay was better than other things.

There were indeed pretty stringent rules about keeping up a rate of work. I felt lucky that lifting books at standing height and walking constantly didn't cause the fatigue that using a tape gun for 10 hours might. I don't recall getting demerits but I remember the system (this was 10+ years ago).

When I first scanned the report I thought it seemed overblown. However, the workers interviewed describe a lack of human connection in the face of difficulties. When I did this work, there were expectations, but there were also plenty of pleasant, supportive managers around. I never had any problems doing my work, but I would have imagined more interest and understanding of a team leader if someone did.

This was long, long ago in the history of Amazon. Given their volume today, I can't say I'm surprised at the numbers-focused attitude. It's very disappointing to hear.

another vote up for the large scale. It emphasizes the simplicity and I never mind bigger for ui tasks, it's always easier to use.

I was excited to set up SMS notification for lots of things, but it took ifttt 26 minutes to notify me of an email. Hmmm. Any particular reason for the latency?

great read. Designers perennially bitch and moan about difficult clients, but when I review my last year of consulting, I can agree with Joshua that the difficult experiences have been _my_ fault. I get to pick my clients, and it's up to me to set expectations and manage the process. It's very true that all the skills and talent one has developed can be rendered meaningless by a lack of professionalism. And sometimes the very definition of professionalism means not getting into something at a price / timeline / term of agreement your integrity can live with.

Well, if you want potential mothers-in-law to gaze lovingly, consider that they have interacted with physicians and attorneys and know what their value is, as has our society for centuries. Stand up straight, offer eye contact and a warm smile, and if you're every bit as smart and dedicated as the average finance dude, what is left to prove? Be confident that you can quickly educate anyone on the nobility of your professional choice. Any doc or lawyer can lay it on thick. ;)

In all seriousness...I don't altogether get this gripe. I guess because I went to art school and will never, ever have any "power," let alone money. But it was _my_ choice. I'd rather be doing something fun that I'm good at.

Yeah, I don't have any stats at hand but docs-in-training I know seem to see themselves as being somewhere around $200k in hock for all the training. And med. reimbursement is going to a scary place in the US. I worked in a medical practice and the dual specialist MD lost money on every patient due to insurance and overhead and abysmal medicare reimbursement. Clinical trials provided the practice's profit. Programming / engineering seems much more free.

Regarding governance - most ambitious politicians appear to be extroverts. I'm not an engineer but there are many in my family and they're not the most gregarious sort. Is this an inaccurate stereotype? I wonder if despite highly intelligent, moral attributes, our technologists, research scientists, etc. are not attracted to the intense social demands and / or rewards of politics. Are our smart, worthy introverts "opting out?" If so, it's a shame. But on the other hand, no-one will be coming by to tap you on the shoulder for such roles, even my neighborhood councilman has to hustle.

naive is the perfect term. Rutledge's ideas about what news should be are quite naive, in fact. Of course good journalists should adhere to strict ethical standards, but all that stuff about how popularity should have no basis, and that "editorial" is a bogeyman? Sounds like he has little context for what news has been in our democracy, and/or just an idealistic worldview. There has never been a crisp line, and it's dangerous to imagine there could be.

I think the best designers get this "real world" aspect of news. Hopefully same goes for you programmers.

You wouldn't want to work for someone who responded to critical thinking with equally critical thinking? I sure would.

Rutledge did indeed rant generally in his opening paragraphs a bunch of stuff about poor standards, lack of ethics etc in the industry with little to back it up, then segues to the Times as his example of the design problems (see what he did there?).

I don't really think it would be sporting to feign appreciation for a critique that starts by declaring your your product "terribly-designed" and concludes with an even less effective design.

Perhaps more importantly, if I were current or former staff of NYT, I would have a hard time taking even the valid criticism found in Rutledge's post to heart, given that he implies exceptionally bad faith on the part of the Times staff. We all can cite a truly terrible online news design that would benefit from some of Rutledge's suggestions, but the focus on NYT seems like a oblique strategy to accuse the Times of something almost like yellow journalism, what with of the suggestion that opinion is shamefully placed in context with reportage, that popular news is pandering, etc.

just curious, knowing that it's designer objects, would you actually be interested? I tend to know a great deal of people who completely fetishize the idea of consuming "good design" from end-to-end. So this type of customer would be delighted to find an awesome knitting pattern or candlestick or cheese board. They'd probably be into a great desktop wallpaper too, if there were a truly original / useful concept for that.

That's interesting. However, in the design community fab.com seems to be spreading by word of mouth, so in my own case, I signed up eagerly on a recommendation and I don't recall spending any time reading what the landing page said. Is there any way to account for that sort of signup?

Ah, you are quite right. Thanks for the clarification. So much for my pronouncements about looking closely ;)

Speaking as a visual designer, I would advise you that iA's template is heads above, and actually starts you off with the "stunning" typography this template attempts to describe and demonstrate.

Type freaks will tell you that the key to setting text is all in the negative space. The homepage in particular uses white space around the headline and button in a very static, uninteresting way. The huge misalignment of items in the footer looks like something got broken. Know why? Because although the footer category heads are evenly distributed into four divs, the text contained in each column has a different visual weight. The third column should be optically aligned (meaning you need to eyeball it), so there doesn't appear to be a gaping space to the right of the "Connect" list.

Moreover, the 'About Space' block is crashing into the text on the left. Even the Space logo is poorly kerned, causing the A to float in an ambiguous way.

Take away what you can from the article submitted as there are some sensible tips, but don't don't pay for this template hoping for something competently designed. My design advice is to trust your eyes. Designers use some rules of thumb but looking carefully for the places where the rules fail is how you get to be great at setting type. Even a great template can't guarantee to make _your_ content look great.

heh, that's most certainly not Tekton, which is very recognizable.

The script in the figures shown is Zapfino. They're both inspired by hand lettering, but stylistically are nothing alike.

It's a pretty crazy error for a post on typographic expertise.